Kids Program?? For A 5 And 4 Year Old? No?

[JULIE7]

IM TEMPTED TO THE ITINERARY OF PRINCESS CROWN AND JUST BECAUSE ITS A NEW SHIP TOO. BUT, WILL MY 5 AND 4 YEAR OLD BE BORED? ANY BAD EXPERIENCE? IS THERE A KID PROGRAM AT ALL? JUST TV WATCHING? :confused: :eek: :rolleyes:

[spongerob]

What do you expect from a kids' program? I take it you feeling some apprehension from the complaints posted about the childrens' program on Coral Princess. First off, Crown and Coral are entirely different ships. Crown Princess is a 3100-passenger megaship geared more towards families. Coral Princess is a smaller ship (though still large in its own right) that was built for longer cruises that are not necessarily the first choice of many families.

 

As for your children, being as young as they are, does 9 days in a relatively confined environment seem like a wise choice of vacation for them and you? Only you can decide that.

[merela]

IM TEMPTED TO THE ITINERARY OF PRINCESS CROWN AND JUST BECAUSE ITS A NEW SHIP TOO. BUT, WILL MY 5 AND 4 YEAR OLD BE BORED? ANY BAD EXPERIENCE? IS THERE A KID PROGRAM AT ALL? JUST TV WATCHING? :confused: :eek: :rolleyes:

 

Kids' club will only work for those kids who has previous preschool experience. They sing songs, do lots of coloring and crafts, indoor play (playdoh, legos, and games) and "outdoor" play which involved ball play and different physical activities.

 

I have posted kids' club activities patters here before. You may want to do a search on this board. The activities are divided up in 30 minute intervals, so the kids have to switch gear and do something else every 30 minutes. My experience is that Princess will always send their best people to their newest ships. True, they will have TV watching late at night and sometimes in the afternoon, but mostly Disney movies at this age. As I see it, as long as they keep our kids safe and happy, I don't mind a little TV watching. The kids will win little prizes from different contests they do at the club. I've never seen any unhappy 4 or 5YOs in Princess' kids club. Oh, they also get a free Princess t-shirt that they can color throughout the cruise while they are at the kids' club.

 

They have kids' dinners on formal nights. Parents drop their children off at 7pm and the kids eat together. It's really cute.

 

The kids' club hours are 9-12, 2-5, and 7-10. They will charge for 10pm-1am. And on port days, you can sign up the day before to leave your children in the kids' club so you and hubby can do some adult-oriented activities on shore. If the port day is a whole day, then they will make sure that the kids have lunch. I believe there are some TV watching and board game play on port days. My 5YO DD made bead necklaces and bracelets when she didn't go to Ketchikan with us. She stayed on board. Sightseeing was boring for her.

 

Your 5YO will be more curious than your 4YO. Get a floor plan of the Crown and discuss what they can expect on the ship--of course, you can't possibly outline all that can happen since you've never been on the ship, but you can tell them about kids' club, boarding, muster drill, cabin, meals on board, and the places they will go. The first afternoon on board, after you have signed up your kids in the kids' club, you can play a game similar to Dora the Explorer and explore the ship with your kids.

 

Just think of this as daycare more than preschool. Your kids won't really learn anything while on the cruise, but they may make some friends and I don't think they'll be bored with the kids program for the 3-5 age group.

 

Perhaps that poster who was unhappy about Coral had better experiences on other cruiselines when it comes to kids' club, but there is a certain level of expectation that one should have while on a cruise. The kids' club people are babysitters, not teachers. Do not expect your child to be entertained all the time because what's fun for one child may not be fun for another. I do believe the problem with Coral's program is with the kids' program director. All the pre-teen and teen programs I've seen on the Princess are fun-filled. They had ice cream parties, scavenger hunts, Princess idol, talent shows, mini-olympics, crafts to bring home (they made lanyards and photo frames). The teen group even had their own hangout. I did not see an unhappy face on the kids on my previous Princess cruises (Star, Diamond, and Sapphire--all new ships). My kids are older now and they have an opinion, so I would look at the kids' patter the night before and decide at what time they would want to go to the kids club the next day. The rest of the time, my kids are roaming the ship with one of us, in the swimming pool, or playing in the room. The 2 bunk beds are like a jungle gym!

[merela]

Here are the kids' patters for Sapphire's 7-day Mexican Riviera:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=250207

 

I did a similar post for our Alaskan cruise last summer. The kids program do not change much. The theme did change. Winter theme for Alaska and summer theme for Mexico.

 

HTH.

[cjh]

You will receive a copy of the activities for every hour the center is open. If you are afraid because you read the post about movies don't be. That poster only took her children from 7-10pm and she knew that was movie time.

[AliceJ]

Just to weigh in on this. We were on the CB last April and our 5 y.o. attended the kids' club regularly - as in so regularly, that if the club didn't close for a few hours around lunch and dinner, we never would have seen her!!!

 

Merela's info is great, so I won't get into much detail. We found that the Patters did a great job of listing what was in the kids' club each day and DD left the kids' club with plenty of fun crafts each day.

 

We opted not to have her stay in the kids' club on port days, though. On our cruise, the age range in the kids' club went all the way up to 12 y.o. (port days only) and the kids' club was supervised, but did not have scheduled activities. (We were made aware of this at the kids' club orientation).

 

You can always sign the kids up for the kids' club, and if one or both does not like it they don't have to go back.

 

DD also had a great time exploring the ship with us and became our "navigator" around the ship.

 

Good luck!

[kgn]

Hi, I am the poster from the coral. In my efforts to try to get more activities for the 8 - 12yrs I talked to a lot of parents. Most that I spoke with had the same concerns I had in the 8 - 12 age group. Many of them had kids in the younger and older groups as well (we had a teen too) and nobody complained about the programming for the younger or older groups. The program for those two groups seemed age apropriate and the younger kids room was more interactive with a climbing structure and ball pit. The teen room was awesome with a old fashion juke box & fooze ball table and great games. I should have known we were in trouble when the 8 - 12 had a large screen TV and some games.

 

Bottom line was that we do not dump our kids all day. We use the program strictly in the evenings when there is "adult" activities, disco (18 and older), casino (21 & older) and pg-13 comics.

 

I think you will be fine your kids are young but if you are worried see if you can get a schedule of the programming.

[Baxter]

... and "outdoor" play which involved ball play and different physical activities.

 

 

This was not our experience, at least on the Grand. We cruised with a 10 year old, and I was absolutely shocked that all of their activities were indoors.

[katisdale]

We cruised with our 5 year old granddaughter and almost 8 year old grandson last May. They both loved the kids program. There were there on the sea days and also went to the kids area at Princess Cay. They were with us in St. Thomas and St. Martin. They wanted to go to the program whenever it was open and still talk about "my cruise" and want to go on another one. We were on the CB.

[boltnut55]

I haven't been on the Princess ships yet. My DD is 8 and cruised when she was almost 4 and 7 The first cruise, she was 1 of 4 children, so we didn't use any of the facilities - it was mostly an older crowd. Last year, there were probably 50 kids of all ages going to Alaska, and she participated and had lots of fun. They have set programs and there will be movie time, but it's not on all the time. They have an actual schedule, such as 1:00 Arts and Crafts 2:00 skit 3:00 Ice cream 3:30 reading, 4:00 movie, 8:00 p.m. Karaoke night, etc.

 

Whether they will enjoy or not is hard to say... really depends on their personalities and how they are entertained normally. I have friends whose kids watch TV and play video games all day long, so they don't really interact well with other kids. Others are complaining and whining about everything. And others go with the flow and are happy doing any kid stuff instead of watching mom and dad talk about stuff with aunts and uncles all day long about subjects they aren't interested.